Apparent Failure
by Elizabeth1
Summary: Is Michael a failure?


Title: Apparent Failure  
Author: Elizabeth  
E-mail: uhmidont@theglobe.com  
Summary/Couple: Michael and Maria.  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.  
  
Here's what Michael Guerin has learned in his time on earth:  
  
People assume that you want to be noticed.  
  
The librarian at school sees him more than any of his teachers do, and when he once made the mistake of telling her he'd really liked a book he'd borrowed instead of throwing it down on the counter and glaring at her like he'd done every other time, she spent the next six months trying to talk to him whenever he came in. He said something once, he must want to talk, he must be lonely. He must need saving.  
  
He would force himself to stand there and watch her talk as he waited for her to check out the books he picked, would pretend that her voice was merely an illusion that would recede if only he would be still long enough. After three months of the silent treatment, she would end her questions to him with a slight, sickly smile. After four months, the questions and comments lessened in length. By five months, she'd started to crack, had started to tense when he came into the library. By six months she hated him, would check his books out quickly with an icy glare and never let his late fees slide. That's what he regrets about the whole thing, besides the fact that he spoke when he shouldn't have. He never has money to pay late fees and always has to borrow it from Max.  
  
He does not want to be noticed. He wants to be a shadow. He wants his time on Earth to be a dream. He wants to wake up somewhere and matter. He wants to wake up to a life that isn't the one he's been given.  
  
**  
  
He sits in the Crashdown and watches Maria as she talks to Liz. He wonders what they are talking about and watches Maria till she looks at him and then stares at her till she looks away. Good. He likes winning staring contests; he likes keeping people on edge. He learned at an early age that if you act like nothing scares you, people will let you be.  
  
Maria's mouth droops as Liz shakes her head. Maria bothers him. He thinks that she bothers him simply because her appearance in his life was so unexpected. She was just another person in the sea of irritating humanity that surged through his life-maybe a bit louder than most-but then she blew it all by not responding like everyone else does to him, by forever doing things that surprise him.  
  
She makes him want to talk when he knows he shouldn't, makes him think when he doesn't want to, makes him act even though he knows his actions have bad reactions, makes him want even though he swore that he never, ever would. It scares him. She scares him.  
  
She freaked out when she found out that he, Max, and Isabel were aliens. That was the only expected thing she's ever really done. It was stupid on Max's part to tell Liz-it was stupid of Max to save her the day she got shot; Michael would have left her to die. When he is feeling particularly worried about things, he forces himself to imagine that Maria got shot that day instead of Liz. He forces himself to imagine walking past her and letting her bleed to death on the floor. Don't save me, he'd once told her, don't help me. He would have just followed his own advice to her.  
  
Here's what else he's learned:  
  
He now knows when he's lying to himself.  
  
The day of the shooting, he would have been too scared to help Liz simply because that's the way he is. If it had been Maria, she would have died and he would have never known her. That thought scares him too.  
  
As a child, coming out of the pods, he could not acknowledge that Isabel and Max were nearby for days. They clung together when they came out of the pods and he hid and watched. Afraid. He stood on a rock-Max says it was so he could announce his presence and wait for the world to deal with him. Michael knows that he really stood on the rock because that way those he'd been watching couldn't reach him and hurt him if they didn't like him. He wasn't challenging-he was hedging his bets if he had to flee.  
  
When they wanted to go out into the desert, he didn't want to go. He can remember Max's face, so serious even as a child, patiently waiting for him. He can remember Isabel, ready to charge ahead with no worries that the world wouldn't take her, wouldn't want her. He remembers clinging to them as they walked, worrying that he wouldn't be able to find the pods again, that he would get separated from Max and Isabel, that he would fall and they would leave him behind.  
  
Being scared kept him behind when they got found. He couldn't go even though Max reached back for him. He reached for them out in the desert with Riverdog, but only because he knew what happened in the past when he didn't. Knowing what happened the last time he didn't reach made acting brave a lot easier.  
  
He is afraid that where he is from is worse than Earth, he is afraid that if he finds his home no one there will want him either. He is afraid that if he cares for Maria anymore than he already does he will never be able to leave. He is afraid that not leaving could be something he wants. He is afraid of the past, he is afraid of the future, he is afraid of himself.  
  
Maria walks over to him and he stares at her because he doesn't want to. He is sometimes able to realize that his best interests are served by doing what he doesn't want to.  
  
"What do you want?"  
  
She is distant to him now. That's what he's wanted and requested. It's good and he smiles at her, all teeth and fury, to show her that she doesn't bother him. He realizes that he has shown her how much she effects him as soon as he looks at her and sees her mouth quirk. Sometimes he hates her for twisting him around the way she does, and then he hates himself more for forever placing himself in situations where he has to be near her.  
  
"Water."  
  
She rolls her eyes at him and walks away. He looks out the window and wonders where he can go to pass the hours till Hank leaves to go to work.  
  
She comes back by the table, gives him a glass of water. About a quarter of it sloshes over the top when she slams it on the table. He watches it pool and slide slowly to the edge.  
  
A plate clatters onto the table in front of him.  
  
"It's day-old cake. We can't give it away. "  
  
He keeps his hands under the table. His self-control is tenuous at best, and she is forever pushing him into action and stupidity. He wants to thank her, he wants to tell her that he doesn't want it, he wants to tell her that he once found a strand of her hair on his coat and saved it, that it sits, wrapped in a Kleenex in the bottom of a shoebox in his room.  
  
"Can I have a fork?" His palms will have little marks on them from his nails, but he can fix that.  
  
"Sure" she says and throws one onto the table.  
  
She walks away and he reaches blindly for the Tabasco sauce.  
  
"By the way," she calls back, "the fork fell on the floor and I'm not getting you a clean one."  
  
The Tabasco sauce sinks into the little cuts on his palms and he welcomes them--a righteous man waiting for salvation.  
  
Here's the other thing he's learned:  
  
He is forever thinking of himself in human terms. That scares him more than Maria does.  
  
**  
  
She is talking to Alex now.  
  
"What are you doing tonight?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
Michael pushes the last bit of cake around on his plate.  
  
"I have to go to Carlsbad and get some stuff for my mom. Do you want to come with me?"  
  
"Nah. I mean, I would but I can't." Alex's voice lowers. "My mom's making me watch my little sister. God, my life sucks--I'm spending Friday night babysitting! What about Liz, can she go with you?"  
  
"She's got to work."  
  
"Sorry. But unless you want a seven year old in the car with you..."  
  
"I guess it would be too much for me and your sister." A giggle from her-it washes over him-the sound of a mock-groan from Alex.  
  
"Don't worry about it, Alex. I won't even tell anyone that you're a proud member of the babysitter's club. Do you want anything else?"   
  
"No thanks."  
  
Michael rests his fork on the table.  
  
What is he doing tonight?  
  
Hang out around town till after Hank's left for work-he's on the night shift this month. The walk to the trailer park. Watch TV if the cable bill has been paid, look at the flickering screen if it hasn't. Maybe read a book. Listen for Hank's car. If Hank's drunk, go to bed and wait for morning. If Hank isn't drunk, then a quick vault out the window and a stay at Max's, a sleeping bag on the floor.  
  
It's not weakness to want something a little different. It's a change of routine.  
  
"Hey, Maria."  
  
She turns towards him. "You're still here?"  
  
"I can go with you."  
  
She blinks and he watches her eyes. It's just something to do. No big deal if she says no.  
  
"Fine. But you have to help me carry the boxes. No 'bad back' crap, ok?"  
  
He lets out the breath he didn't know he was holding. "Maybe."   
  
**  
  
He waits for her outside, staring out at the desert so he won't stare at the door of the café.  
  
He hears Max's voice and turns, sees that Max is talking to Liz. Max looks happy when he talks to Liz. Sometimes Michael wonders about that. Talking to Maria makes him many things, but happy isn't on the list.  
  
Here's the difference between him and Max:  
  
Max sees the Earth as comfortable, familiar. Why shouldn't he? Max lives up-he lives in a house, with parents that care. His clothes are always clean, he gets breakfast in the morning. Expensive cereal in bowls that all match, with milk that wasn't made from powder in a box. Max finds the routine of life comfortable; the earth likes him. The sky is his world and it's almost always blue. And if there's an occasion where it isn't-maybe there's a gray cloud or two-well, they always move on.  
  
Michael lives down. The sky doesn't soar up for him; he feels it sitting on his shoulders. Pressing down, always down. He breathes in dirt-every morning when he wakes up, when he steps out of the trailer and inhales the exhaust fumes that make up his air, when he sees everyone around him, always as dust-covered and broken as he is.  
  
He's kept for the money he brings in. He knows that at seventeen years and nine months-when the last check from the state will come--he will no longer even have the trailer. He knows that he's in school only because the state insists that he go and not because anyone cares if he succeeds or even passes. He knows that he only matters at all because he isn't from this earth. If he wasn't like Max and Isabel, he would be nothing to them. That's what hurts the most. Max and Isabel are his sky, he would die for them, but other than that--what does he have to offer? What is he to them?  
  
"Hey." Max has seen him standing by Maria's car and is calling to him. Liz is by his side.  
  
Michael nods back and throws a cautious glance at Liz.  
  
"You wanna come to the movies with us?"  
  
Michael looks at Max, considering the offer. Sit in a theater, watch a story that ends happily, maybe eat popcorn. That could be good. Better than being with Maria. Safer.  
  
Liz's hand curls around Max's and he knows he would be a third wheel. Max would welcome him along anyway, pay for his ticket, listen to his comments about the movie.  
  
He looks inside the window of the Crashdown.  
  
Maria is arguing with a customer as she stands near the front door. Her hair is sticking up on the left side and he can see circles under her eyes from where he stands. She isn't the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. She talks too much. She wears ugly shoes. She is almost always angry at him.  
  
He never gets tired of looking at her.  
  
"Michael?"  
  
"Have a good time Max. I'll see you later."  
  
Max turns to see what Michael is looking at, but Maria has moved away. Max gives Michael a cautious glance and then leaves with Liz.   
  
Michael sits on the hood of Maria's car and waits for her.  
  
**  
  
She finally comes out, muttering curses and waving her alien antenna headband around. Her hair is sticking up more and Michael puts his hands in his pockets so he won't touch her.  
  
She opens the car and slides in, unlocks his door, and falls quiet. There is nothing but silence when they leave the Crashdown.   
  
He opens his mouth to speak, thinks better of it, and tries to enjoy the silence. Why is it that he only feels a need to talk around her?  
  
"This is kind of weird, don't you think?"  
  
"Huh?" He'd been watching her hands on the steering wheel, looking at the outline of her legs-realizing that he probably should have gone to the movies.  
  
She points out the window at a sign "You know. Going south on 285 and all that. No blowing up my car this time, ok?"  
  
She laughs and he looks out the window. How should he respond to something like that? He never knows. He wants to laugh because she remembers spending time with him, he wants to weep because she remembers humiliation-the way she goaded him into using his powers even though he knew they wouldn't work.  
  
"You aren't planning on asking me a bunch of stupid questions again, are you?" He hopes that he's hurt her-that's what alarms him most about her. She is forever worming under his skin and making him feel. Even Hank no longer rouses much emotion in him-pity, mostly, and that's only occasionally. But Maria-what she makes him feel is a million times worse than anything he's ever felt over Max or Isabel.   
  
"Please. You're like the most boring alien ever. As far as I can tell, all you do is skip school and what...sit around watching TV all day? God, if only the government knew. Think of all the taxpayer money that would be saved."  
  
He laughs at that because it's the truth. After a moment, she laughs too and smiles at him.  
  
He tells her that the cd she's listening to sucks and starts fighting with her over music. It's familiar, quarreling with her, and he is able to relax a little as they head down 285. Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea.  
  
**  
  
She tells him she's hungry after they've been in the car for about an hour.  
  
"We've only got thirty more miles to Carlsbad."  
  
"Yeah, and we've got another hour and half to get back after that. I need to eat."  
  
He shrugs and she pulls into the parking lot of a fast food restaurant.  
  
"Look, I'll go through the drive-through. It won't take as long. What time is Hank supposed to get home?"  
  
He absolutely, positively, without a doubt, hates her. She has startled him so much that he actually feels his jaw drop open, like he's some sort of dim-witted TV sitcom kid. "What?"  
  
"You know," she says softly. "I just figured you wanted to get back before Hank got home..."  
  
He looks out the window because if he looks at her he will do something stupid like kiss her or cry or get out of the car and run screaming down 285 to that horrible little motel where he was tired and scared and horny enough to have opened the edges of his-what, heart? soul?-to her.  
  
How can she know him so well? How could she possibly know that the one thing he is always careful to never, ever do is get home after Hank has started his ritual TV watching and drinking?  
  
He dares a glance over at her and sees that she's studying the drive-through menu. A disembodied voice speaks through a hollow hamburger and Michael forces himself to replay and recreate the day of the shooting, forces himself to watch as Maria is shot, forces himself to see that he is too weak and scared to save her, forces himself to watch her lie bleeding on the floor of the café.   
  
She turns to look at him as they wait to pick up the food and he smirks at her, makes a comment about how he can only handle a couple hours of her at a time. They start arguing again and he breathes a sigh of relief.  
  
**  
  
The smell of food is making him faint. All he's eaten today is the piece of cake Maria gave him. It's the end of the month, and Hank's stretched the state check as far as it could go. Michael has eaten mayonnaise sandwiches and dry cereal for as long as he could, but the cereal was gone two days ago, the bread ran out yesterday, and he couldn't bring himself to go to school today and bum money for lunch off Isabel.  
  
"Do you want some?" Maria waves a cardboard container of French fries at him.  
  
He wants to refuse but he's trying to keep a level head, trying to remember that his first instincts are almost never the best ones. He takes two and eats them slowly.  
  
When they get to Carlsbad, Michael makes sure to take the bag out of the back seat and throw it in the trash. Maria looks at him.  
  
"You're cleaning something up? What are you, sick?" She moves to feel his forehead. Her hand would rest on his head, he could capture it with it own, kiss the back of it, pull her in close and bend his head down towards her. He ducks away from her instead.  
  
Maria goes inside a warehouse-type building and starts arguing with whoever is inside. He can hear the frustrated tone of the man she's arguing with, catches the occasional word or two, hears the condescending "look, little girl" tone of voice.  
  
He smiles. Poor guy won't know what hit him. He's the only person he knows who can win an argument with Maria DeLuca.  
  
**  
  
Ten minutes later, Maria emerges carrying a box. A dazed looking older man is with her, and he's carrying a bunch of things wrapped in tissue paper. Maria tells him to put the stuff in the back seat "Carefully!" and he complies.  
  
Maria stomps back into the building, presumably to get another box, and the man looks at Michael. "She really knows how to drive a hard bargain," he says in a respectful tone.  
  
Pride. That's what he feels. Maria is special. Everyone sees it. Why did she ever notice him? He shrugs at the guy and swallows his voice.  
  
Maria comes out of the building, hands on her hips. He can feel her glaring at him from where he stands. He considers going over and kissing her, just to make sure that she is real. He thinks about getting in the car and driving off, heading farther south, farther away from Roswell. He goes over and picks up a box instead, and takes it back out to the car.  
  
Five minutes later they're leaving and Maria calls her mother, tells her that she picked up everything she was supposed to. Michael digs around at the piles of tissue paper in the back seat, wondering what Maria's mother is selling this week.  
  
Coffee mugs. They all say "I got abducted in Roswell, New Mexico and all I got was this lousy coffee cup."  
  
Michael laughs. "I got sent to Roswell, New Mexico, and all I got was a lousy life."  
  
"You and me both, spaceboy," Maria responds. "And look at it this way-I have to live with someone who sells this stuff."  
  
He touches her arm before he thinks about it, running a finger around the cuff of her waitress uniform. "Don't forget the waiting tables bit too."  
  
She laughs and turns the radio up, starts singing along. "This is what you get for reminding me about work," she giggles.  
  
He looks out the window and listens to her voice. It sounds pretty good actually, but he'd never tell her that.  
  
**  
  
They're maybe twenty miles from Roswell when she starts cursing.   
  
"What?" he says mildly alarmed but not surprised. Things had gone way better than he thought they would, so of course something would happen.  
  
"Stupid car's almost out of gas," she mutters. "My mom better pay me back for this."  
  
They stop at a gas station and argue about who's going to pump gas. They end up flipping a coin and he loses. She smirks and goes to buy a soda and pay for the gas.  
  
He's getting ready to get back in the car when she comes out of the mini-mart. She's carrying a soda and flipping her keys through her fingers.  
  
She has done something inside the gas station, rubbed something shiny all over her mouth. It glistens on her lips, makes them look redder than they are. All he can do is stare at her as she moves towards him.  
  
When he was little, he got school lunches for free. He always ate them; sometimes they were the only meal he got. He loved the foods that most kids hated and wouldn't eat; creamed green leaves that smelled faintly of sulfur, macaroni and cheese with a grainy texture and brown edges, small squares pieces of meat that sat on limp pizza. He loved it all.  
  
He looked at the lunches that Max and Isabel bought-sandwiches with no crusts and slices of meat so large that they fell off the edges, little packets of cookies, boxes with juice in them-with envy and awe. Sometimes Max and Isabel would have money and he would walk with them as they brought ice cream sandwiches or tubes of sherbet that you had to push up in order to eat. Once in a while Max or Isabel would buy him ice cream, though he usually pretended he wasn't interested.  
  
What he always wanted, more than anything else, was a popsicle. They sold only red popsicles at school, and Max and Isabel never, ever bought them because they could eat them at home any time. Popsicles were common to them, they grew on the shelves in their freezer, bloomed in the cold section of the grocery store they went to every week with their mother. Michael always refused popsicles at the Evan's house because he would see the look in Mrs. Evans' eyes as she offered him one. He didn't like pity as a child and he doesn't like it now.  
  
He longed for the popsicles they sold at school, even after he learned they were merely frozen sticks of sugar water. His childhood dreams were not filled with bikes or ponies or of Christmas presents too large to fit in the house. He would dream of a box of popsicles, the sound of the wrapper opening, the smell of sugar and fruit, of looking in the mirror and seeing a tongue made red from eating.  
  
That is what her mouth reminds him of, those popsicles he spent a childhood longing for. He wants and he wants and he wants and it's always out of reach.  
  
She gives him a slight smile when she reaches him, he watches her mouth curve up at the corners, sees the glossy shape of her lips.   
  
He kisses her quickly, so she won't have time to question him and so he won't have to think about what he's doing. She tastes like herself and waxy strawberries and he could kiss her forever.  
  
In the end, the only thing that makes him pull away from her is shame. Shame because he can never control himself around her, shame because she breaks the little willpower he has and never knows it, shame he will always carry because he will forever be the boy --not an alien, just a boy-- who loved the kale they served in the elementary school cafeteria because it was food and he was hungry.   
  
**  
  
She is staring at him. "Why did you do that?"  
  
He shrugs because it's the safest answer and watches with dismay as she continues to stand right in front of him. Sometimes he wonders what it would take to get her to leave him alone. Could he do it-do something that would make her want no part of him?  
  
He looks down at her hands and knows that the answer is no. She bites her nails, and the sight of them-- short, with ragged edges-it makes him want to scream with fury at himself, at her. He wants to take her hand and touch her nails, take care of them, smooth the edges, fix the spots where she's torn the skin.  
  
"It was a mistake," he says finally, trying not to wince when her eyes meet his.  
  
He would expect her to say "Yes it was," and drive off. He would expect her to walk away from him without a look back.  
  
"You got that right," she says and gets in the car.  
  
It turns out that he has been lying to himself again, that he didn't expect her to walk away after all. There's a hot rush of emotion in him, of feelings he tries to avoid-remembrances of sitting on the edge of the road after Max and Isabel left, of the day he first realized that Hank didn't want a son, that Hank only wanted the money he brought in the form of a check from the state, of when he first realized that although he'd die for Max and Isabel he was too scared to go about creating any sort of happiness for himself. Fear, shame, terror-all the things he knows, all the things he hates. He moves towards the car and then stops. What could he do now, anyway?   
  
Her head appears out the car window. "Are you coming or what? I have to get home soon and I know you think you're too good for my car, but I'll bet you don't want to walk."  
  
And there she goes, surprising him again. He walks over to the car and gets in, careful not to look at her.  
  
The first time he touched her was the night of the Crash festival. Liz had come up with a plan and Max had gone along with it. Isabel had agreed because she didn't want to leave Roswell, didn't want to leave Max. Michael was sure the plan wouldn't work, and truth to tell, he hoped it wouldn't, he thought that leaving Roswell would at least put him and Max and Isabel on some sort of equal footing.  
  
He was too scared to leave on his own so he'd given in also. He didn't think he'd be able to survive without Max and Isabel, although if they'd asked he would have said they couldn't survive without him.   
  
So he'd gone and put on the stupid costume Liz had gotten for him. And he'd waited where he'd been told to. And when he saw Isabel get out of the car, he'd gone over to Maria and put his hands, covered with silver paint, on her skin.  
  
Maria had been muttering about how her mother would kill her if anything happened to her car and she was terrified of him. He'd seen it in her eyes when he'd told her to move her car, and it was the first time he'd ever wished that he was better with people. It wasn't that he didn't want to scare her, because he did-it was that he wanted to ask her why he scared her. He had a feeling that knowing that would keep him safe. It's one of the few times he wishes he had listened to his instincts, that he had done the first thing he'd thought of.  
  
But he'd gone along with the plan instead and when he touched her he knew it was a mistake, knew that fixing things for Max then meant more trouble later. But he also noticed Maria's skin, noticed that he liked touching her, noticed that she helped them only out of loyalty to her friend.  
  
He'd realized that she wasn't that different from him, realized that having her know about them meant that there might be someone who would understand things about him that Max and Isabel never could, and he wanted that.  
  
And when he threw away the costume and stood watching everyone at the festival celebrate the crash that had made his life so miserable, he wasn't as angry and as upset as he could have been, as he should have been. He mostly felt confused and unsure and a happy sort of anticipation that scared him more than anything else.  
  
He looks over at her cautiously. She is looking straight ahead, and he can tell from the way she is sitting, all straight-backed and stiff, that she is angry with him. Good. Maybe he isn't such a failure after all, maybe he won't manage to ruin everything, maybe she'll never guess how much he cares, maybe he'll never have to figure out how much he cares.  
  
**  
  
She stops the car at the entrance to the trailer park. "Bye."  
  
He gets out of the car and looks back at her.  
  
I'm sorry. That's what he should say. He is sorry-sorry he ever met her, sorry he didn't meet her sooner, sorry that he can't just be a boy who'd met a girl, sorry that he wants that, sorry that he's had to watch her walk away over and over again. He's sorry he ever touched her, sorry that he didn't touch her more, sorry that he'll touch her again.  
  
"See you around," he finally says.  
  
She shakes her head and gives him a disbelieving stare. "Yeah. I can't wait."  
  
He walks away, listens as her car heads back down the road. The trailer is still dark, Hank isn't home. He goes to his room and lies on his bed, stares at the ceiling with dry eyes that burn.  
  
Here's the final thing Michael's learned:  
  
Sometimes it sucks to be sixteen. And more than anything else, sometimes it sucks to be Michael Guerin, resident of Roswell, New Mexico.  
  
END  



End file.
